Eighth Anniversary of Sandy Hook Shooting

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, 8 years ago this morning, I was in Bridgeport, CT. I had done an event early that morning with the mayor, and I was due to meet my wife and my two children--then 4 years old and 1--on a train platform in Bridgeport to head down to New York City, to spend the rest of that Friday afternoon with my young kids, their first chance to see the Christmas decorations of the city.

I received a phone call while on the train platform telling me that something had happened in Sandy Hook, CT. Sandy Hook is a section of Newtown, CT.

I debated whether or not to still go down to New York, but as the news started to become more clear, I got in the car and headed up to the firehouse just down a short road from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where an emergency response effort was gathering.

It was there that 20 parents found out what had happened inside that school, as the rest of the world was finding out that same gruesome news.

That was 8 years ago today--mark today--that tragic anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Since that day, I have gotten to know those families--the mothers and the fathers of the children who were killed, the daughters, the siblings of educators who were killed. There were six educators inside Sandy Hook Elementary School who lost their lives that day--heroes all. There were 20 children. I have also gotten to know the community of Sandy Hook even better than I ever had during my 6 years representing them in the House of Representatives.

Sandy Hook was and is a miraculous place. As much as the world saw evil that day, perpetuated by a young man named Adam Lanza, what happened in the hours and days, weeks and months following, in and around Sandy Hook, told us what really sits inside of us, and that is an indescribable goodness, an ability to meet evil with all sorts of generosity that poured on to Sandy Hook from all over the world in big ways and small ways.

Teddy bears were sent in to Sandy Hook by the thousands in the days and weeks afterward. A fund was set up for the families of the victims. Millions of dollars went into that fund to help pay for the college educations of the brothers and sisters who were left behind. The community wrapped its arms around those families, around the first responders. And while Sandy Hook will never ever be the same ever again, I was able to see firsthand what truly lies inside all of us.

Over the last 8 years, we have tried to make good by the memory of those kids. There is no way to fill that hole, but I have watched as communities have been changed through the generosity that has come out of that tragedy. Almost every family established a unique not-for- profit that is doing all sorts of incredible work, all sort of based in many ways off of the loves of those children.

There are charities that are building playgrounds for kids who love to climb and swing. There are charities that are providing access to animals for young kids in need, in memory of the kids who died that day who loved animals. There are charities that are building social- emotional help, trying to make sure that you never ever get in a situation ever again where a young man like Adam Lanza feels so separated from society, his community, his peers, and reality that someone thinks to do what he did. Just on the charitable side of the equation, there is so much over the last 8 years that has happened that has changed people's lives, that has saved lives, because of what those families and what the community of Newtown has done.

There has been policy change as well. We passed the Mental Health Reform Act in the U.S. Senate and in the House, and it was signed into law, one of the last things that President Obama did before he left office.

Of course, we have had an ongoing conversation about the way in which we change our gun laws. Many of us in Connecticut have strong feelings that if Adam Lanza wasn't able to get his hands as easily on a semi- automatic military-style weapon, he may not have ever made the journey to that school that morning. So we continue in our work to try to reset the gun laws of this Nation to try to make sure that no tragedy like that ever happens again simply because of ease of access to a weapon of that power.

About a month after that shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School, I had the chance to visit a community center in the North End of Hartford. I had just been sworn in as a Senator. The tragedy in Sandy Hook happened after my election to Senate but before I had been sworn in. After I was sworn in to the Senate, I went to a community center in the North End of Hartford where I met with the families of the victims of gun violence from that neighborhood. By the time Sandy Hook had happened in 2012, 20 young men and women had lost their lives to gunfire in Hartford. As for the families that we met that day, their hearts grieved deeper than anyone else for the families in Sandy Hook because they knew what that pain is like. They had lost sons and daughters themselves. But they were also furious that the whole country was waking up to the epidemic of gun violence in this country after Newtown when it had been happening in Hartford and Bridgeport and New Haven and New Orleans and Chicago and Los Angeles and Baltimore for decades without much action and without much attention from the mainstream news media or from those in power.

Many of us had to reconcile the ways in which we had spent our public career in the weeks and months after Sandy Hook. I am embarrassed by the fact that I didn't do more when I was in the House of Representatives, that I didn't do more when I was in the State legislature, to try to address the epidemic of gun violence in this country, wherever it happens. There were many people in this Chamber who stood up in the wake of Sandy Hook and decided that they were going to lead--people like Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin--in ways that they hadn't led before.

I think we have all had to reassess our priorities. We have all had to think about whether we measured up to this moment that we live in today, where 100 people died from gun violence and a lot of kids who go to school around this country just expect that, at some point in their young lives, they will be met with a mass shooting. So we come here 8 years later, and we try to measure what has happened. Have we made enough change? And we try to recommit ourselves to these ideas moving forward.

I am proud of many of the things we have done. I am proud of all the charitable efforts, and I am proud of the Mental Health Reform Act, and I am proud we have put more money into school safety. I am proud that a lot of private-sector entities have stood up to stop weapons from being carried into public spaces.

But I am also furious. I am also furious that there are easy, popular things that we could be doing to stop the likelihood of another Sandy Hook, to reduce the level of gun violence that happens in our city, and we choose not to take those steps.

Now, universal background checks wouldn't have saved the lives of those kids in Sandy Hook, but those parents came here and lobbied for that legislation in 2013 because they know that, if that legislation was in place, there would be a whole lot of other kids alive throughout this country because the flow of illegal guns would be stunted into our cities and many of our neighborhoods.

Those families in Sandy Hook don't necessarily care how it gets done. They just want to make sure that there are less parents that ever have to go through what they have gone through. And despite the fact that 95 percent of Americans support something like universal background checks, we still haven't done it here--an example of where democracy just doesn't seem to be working.

So we still have lots to do. I am sure I will get the opportunity over the course of 2021 to talk a lot about the path forward on changing our gun laws.

But the final thing that I want to say today, before I yield the floor to Senator Blumenthal, is that for those Americans who haven't had to come face-to-face with a tragedy like that, maybe for those who haven't been around that kind of pain and sorrow, maybe it is a little bit hard to understand perspective. One of the things we have tried to do in the last 8 years is, on this day--the 1-year, the 2-year, the 3- year, the 4-year, and now the 8-year mark--to just ask people on this day to go out and do something nice for a friend, for a relative, for a stranger. Just act in a kind, generous way, and maybe, over the course of the next year, make it a habit to do a little bit more than you would have done otherwise to help people in and around you in the ways that people helped the community of Sandy Hook--the parents, the relatives--in small and big ways in the wake of the tragedy 8 years ago.

When you are around that kind of loss and pain, when you think about what it is like to lose a child, I think it helps to give some perspective as to what is really important in this world.

We have a habit in this business to treat each other unkindly, and I am guilty of that, just like everyone else in this body is. Especially these days, we tend to fall into this trap too easily in which we assume bad motives of folks who just think differently than us. There are some folks out there today who won't go to businesses that are owned by Republicans or won't associate themselves with folks who might have more progressive views than they have. Politics matter. Don't get me wrong. But there are things that matter more than politics. And when we think about what those families are going through today as they are forced to relive the events of that day at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we should be reminded of how lucky we are to still be on this Earth; for those who haven't endured that kind of loss, how lucky we are to still have our children by our side. And we should remember that kindness, treating people respectfully, understanding what is important in the long run--family, friendships, relationships--that is one of the lessons, I hope, of Sandy Hook.

So this is never a fun day to come down to the floor and mark the anniversary of Sandy Hook, but I want to finish by just saying thank you to the parents and the families for letting Senator Blumenthal and I into their lives.

I have these friendships, these bonds with those families today that I never expected but now may be more meaningful to me than any other relationships that I have. And I do have strong words often for my colleagues about our unwillingness to make change in this body, but it is because, when my public service is done, the measure of whether I succeeded or failed, to me, in many ways is in the hands of those families. Whether they think that I have made a difference to honor the memory of their children is probably what will matter to me more than anything else when I hang up my public service spikes a few years from now--5 years from now, 10 years from now.

I thank them for enduring this pain, for reaching out to those of us in positions of leadership to help guide us, and for finding all sorts of ways to lift up the light and the memory of their children, of their parents, of those that fell 8 years ago today in Sandy Hook.

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